Renewable and Storage Energy Integration for Smart Grid Housing

This paper presents the design, implementation and testing of an embedded system that integrates solar and storage energy resources to smart homes within the smart mierogrid. The proposed system provides the required home energy by installing renewable energy and storage devices. It also manages and schedules the power flow during peak and off-peak periods. In addition, a two-way communication protocol is developed to enable the home owners and the utility service provider to improve the energy flow and the consumption efficiency. The system can be an integral part for homes in a smart grid or smart microgrid power networks. A prototype for the proposed system was designed, implemented and tested by using a controlled load bank to simulate a scaled random real house consumption behavior. Three different scenarios were tested and the results and findings are reported. Moreover, data flow security among the home, home owners and utility server is developed to minimize cyber-attaeks.

Distributed Air-Conditioning Energy Management System within the Smart Grid Context

-Air-conditioning （AC） systems are the major energy consumption units in residential and commercial buildings. In the context of smart grid, optimizing AC operations leads to substantial saving in energy consumption, reducing the consumer＇s bill and contributing to the environment by minimizing carbon emissions from generating stations. This paper presents a distributed AC energy management system for buildings by using networked master-slaves controller architecture. The proposed system was designed, simulated, and experimentally tested by using real AC units in a students＇ residence hall. Based on the students＇ class schedules, several operational scenarios were implemented and tested. The proposed system implementation leads to a 40% to 60% saving of the consumed energy by the tested units. The same energy management scheme can be applied and implemented in other commercial and residential buildings.

Online Fuzzy Logic Base Algorithm for Electricity Price Prediction

This paper presents a web-based system to predict the electricity prices.The proposed system captures the geographical location,weather forecast,and oil price for one week ahead.The captured parameters are fed to a fuzzy-logic-based algorithm to calculate electric energy prices.Based on predicted electricity prices,consumers can turn ON/OFF or reschedule operations of their home appliances to reduce their electricity bill.The proposed algorithm was developed and hosted in a utility server(U-server).On the consumer side,a home gateway(H-gateway),and a monitoring and control system was designed,built,and tested by using a single chip microcontroller.

Internet of Things Cloud Framework for Smart Homes

Smart appliances and renewable energy resources are becoming an integral part of smart homes. Nowadays, home appliances are communicating with each other with home short-range home area gateways, using existing network communication protocols such as ZigBee, Bluetooth, RFID, and WiFi. A Gateway allows homeowners and utilities to communicate remotely with the appliances via long-range communication networks such as GPRS, WiMax, LTE, and power liner carrier. This paper utilizes the Internet of Things （IoT） concepts to monitor and control home appliances. Moreover, this paper proposes a framework that enables the integration and the coordination of Human-to-Appliance, Utility-to- Appliance, and Appliance-to-Appliance. Utilizing the concepts of Internet of Things leads to one standard communication protocols, TCP/IPV6, which overcomes the many diverse home area networks and neighborhood area networks protocols. This work proposes a cloud based framework that enables the IoTs integration and supports the coordination between devices, as well as with device-human interaction. A prototype is designed, implemented, and tested to validate the proposed solution.

IoT-Solar Energy Powered Smart Farm Irrigation System

As the Internet of things(IoT)technology is evolving,distributed solar energy resources can be operated,monitored,and controlled remotely.The design of an IoT based solar energy system for smart irrigation is essential for regions around the world,which face water scarcity and power shortage.Thus,such a system is designed in this paper.The proposed system utilizes a single board system-on-a-chip controller(the controller hereafter),which has built-in WiFi connectivity,and connections to a solar cell to provide the required operating power.The controller reads the field soil moisture,humidity,and temperature sensors,and outputs appropriate actuation command signals to operate irrigation pumps.The controller also monitors the underground water level,which is essential to prevent the pump motors from burning due to the level in the water well.The proposed system has three modes of operations,i.e.the local control mode,mobile monitoring-control mode,and fuzzy logic-based control mode.For the purpose of the proposed system validation,a prototype was designed,built,and tested.